James Marvel is a stage director known for traditional and avant-garde stagings of operatic productions. Marvel was born and raised in New Orleans and received a B.A. in World Literature from Sarah Lawrence College and Oxford University, and an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts from the International Actor Training Academy. He also studied at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Marvel's 2005 production of Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress was deemed "breathtakingly beautiful" with "stage tableaux that were both kinetic and visually striking" by the San Francisco Chronicle. In November 2008, Marvel made his Lincoln Center debut, directing a trilogy of one-act operas by Modest Mussorgsky, Ernst Krenek and Dmitri Shostakovich at the Juilliard School. Credits in the United States include shows at Florence Gould Hall in New York City; The Kimmel Center of Philadelphia; The Huntington Theatre of Boston; The Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco; and the Bing Theatre in Los Angeles.